Italy has army of exorcists

Italy's leading exorcist said on Thursday there were up to 330 priests practising the Vatican-approved procedures for casting out the Devil all over the country. In the Catholic Church exorcists must be priests and they have to be given a sort of 'licence' to perform the special rites by their local bishop .Father Gabriele Amorth, founder and head of an international association of exorcists, said there were no official figures for Italy but he reckoned the number was between300 and 330 .While exorcists were busy trying to expel Satan from possessed Italians, Father Amorth implied that many in the country were unwittingly inviting the Devil into their lives through involvement in the occult .Exorcists say that contact with the occult is one of the ways the Devil can gain access to a person's mind, sometimes exploiting the situation to 'possess' that individual.

"In all these years the Church hasn't noticed that churches are getting emptier while at least 13 million Italians are turning to seers, sorcerers, witches and specialists in the occult,"he said .Father Amorth is one of Rome's nine approved exorcists and the author of several books on the subject .Speaking at the presentation of a new book on his experiences, he also touched on some of the lesser known aspects of exorcism, such as the need for a psychiatrist to help formerly possessed people recover .

The catholic church has revealed how growing interest in satanism and the occult has led to a rise in exorcisms across Queensland. One priest, who asked not to be named for fear of "reprisals", said he was carrying out at least one exorcism a fortnight. More requests for exorcisms came from the Gold Coast than anywhere else. An exorcism involves holy water, sacrament and Bible reading and can go on for many hours, the priest said. Linda Blair made the subject famous in the 1973 film, The Exorcis...

Alone in her bedroom, the black-dressed woman thumbed through her binder of spells and contemplated her next victim. The baritone voice of Satan rumbled in her mind, enticing her deeper into the dark side."Satan told me in a deep, demonic voice, 'You belong to me,'" said Samantha Wheeler, who believes she's been possessed since age 12.But recently, Wheeler met a charismatic pastor from Kenya who promised her deliverance."When I first talked with her, I could see the ma...

Poland plans to open its first exorcism center, for those who believe they are possessed by the devil, in the town of Poczernin 30 km (18 miles) from the city of Szczeczin, Polish media said Wednesday. Andrzej Trojanowski, a Catholic priest working in the city says the center will be equipped with a chapel and will have a psychiatrist on hand. Trojanowski said there was a demandfor the service as he deals with up to 20 people a week allegedly possessed by the devil. The center was the idea of th...

Anthony North: A major area of paranormal activity is possession. The phenomenon is said to involve the taking over of the mind by an ‘entity’ from outside the mind. During possession the whole persona of the individual disappears, leaving only the entity.The history of the paranormal is full of such incidences. But what is the reality of the phenomenon? Does a real ‘entity’ invade the mind, or can answers be found in the psychology of the experiencer? Or is the answer somewhere in between? Type...

An autistic 8-year-old boy died while wrapped in sheets during a prayer service held to exorcise the evil spirits that church members blamed for his condition. The minister who performed the service was arrested in connection with the death, which occurred Friday night at a church in a run-down strip mall. The mother had been taking her son to Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith three times a week for the last three weeks in hopes of curing his autism, said Bishop David Hemphill Sr. It ...

LegalNewsline reports that the US Supreme Court has been asked to hear the case of a former Texas woman who claims she was abused during a forced exorcism in 1996. Laura Schubert, 29, says she was cut and bruised and later experienced hallucinations after themembers of the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God performed an exorcism on her in 1996.She sued the Colleyville, Texas, church in 2002. ATarrant County jury found the church and its members liable for abuse and falsely imprisoning the girl. . Sh...

Some of the mystery surrounding the devil and exorcism is being unveiled in a television and Internet report series, detailing the work of the exorcist of the Diocese of Rome.Society of St. Paul Father Gabriele Amorth, Rome"s exorcist for the past 21 years and a specialist in the figure of Mary, explained in the first edition of the series how he performs exorcisms."I go to one of Rome"s churches, to a parish that is closed during the day," he said. "There is Mass in the morning and then the chu...

A 22-year-old woman died during an exorcism ritual in New Zealand, drowning at a relative"s home as up to 40 family members looked on, police said today.Janet Moses, a mother of two, was held under water in an attempt to drive away a makutu, or Maori curse. Containers holding an "extensive amount" of water were brought into the lounge of the house, in Wellington, for the ceremony.The woman had been dead for nine hours before her family contacted police. She had been placed on a bed and was found...

Hundreds of germans, tortured by inner voices, are on the search for priests who can free them from what they believe to be the grip of the Devil, according to an extraordinary radio documentary that has stirred an awkward debate about exorcism in the Catholic Church. "Over the past year alone I have received requests from around 350 people who think they are possessed by an evil spirit," says Father Joerg Mueller, who heads a group of priests, doctors and therapists to deal with the problem. "T...

By Eric T. Hansen Special to The Washington Post
BERLIN -- The first person to recognize that Anneliese Michel was possessed
by demons was an older woman accompanying the girl on a pilgrimage. She noticed
that Anneliese would not walk past a certain image of Jesus, refused to drink
water from a holy spring and smelled bad -- hellishly bad. An exorcist in a
nearby town examined Michel and returned a diagnosis of demonic possession. The
bishop issued permission to perform the rite o...

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